Manga på folkbiblioteket?
Sju folkbibliotekarier intervjuas om sin syn på manga.
The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine seven public librarians? attitudes towards manga as a new kind of literature in public libraries. Manga is an art form, originally from Japan, but in recent years manga has become very popular in the Western societies. The main issue of this thesis is how the librarians? look at manga and what they think about manga. In this thesis I also discuss to what extension the public libraries in this study have manga in their collections, what the librarians think that public libraries today should offer their visitors and what is important to discuss when the librarians purchase books and other new media to the library. In order to answer these questions I conducted interviews with seven public librarians in children and youth departments in five public libraries in the north of Sweden. This study shows that the librarians are positive in their attitudes towards manga. Their opinion is that the public libraries could offer manga, but they think that quality is very important and they will be sure about the top-quality in the manga they offer. The librarians? main opinion is that their lack of knowledge in manga is a problem. In this thesis I use Herbert J. Gans theory about taste cultures and taste publics and my conclusion is that there is a relation between the librarians? knowledge and to which taste culture they belong.